` nmae mãuïye om namo maïjuçraye i bow down to · pdf filechapter ten:...

` nmae mÃuïye

om namo Maïjuçraye

I bow down to Manjushri

Chapter Ten: One and the Same?

स

१ yadindhanaṁ sa cedagnirekatvaṁ kartṛkarmaṇoḥ | anyaścedindhanādagnirindhanādapyṛte bhavet || 1

10.1

If the firewood was the fire

Doer and deed would be the same;

If fire was separate from its fuel,

It could happen without the fuel.

In this chapter, Arya Nagarjuna takes up the example of fire and fuel which others used

as a metaphor to argue that were things that were both truly or inherently existing and

also dependently originating. Even dependent things have self-existence, it was

claimed. Fire depends on fuel, but fire and fuel are distinct but also have their own

separate exsitences. Fire is neither identical to nor absolutely different from fuel.

Similarly, it might be argued, there could be a self that truly exists even while also

depending on its parts – a self who is neither identical to nor different from the self’s

parts, but nevertheless truly exists.

Arya Nagarjuna will argue that things like fire and fuel can neither be really the same

as each other nor inherently different from one another – and these are the only two

alternatives.

In this opening verse, Arya Nagarjuna sets up the dilemma: If fire (equated in this

verse to the actor or agent) and fuel (compared to the action) truly exist, they must be

essentially the same (ekatva) or essentially different (anyatva). If they were the

essentially the same, fire and fuel as well as actor and action would be identical and,

therefore, indistinguishable. If they were essentially different, then one could exist

without the other: fire could burn without fuel.


एव

२ nityapradīpta eva syādapradīpanahetukaḥ |

punarārambhavaiyarthyamevaṁ cākarmakaḥ sati || 2

10.2

It would be pointless to light this fire

Since it doesn’t come from a cause;

It would just stay there, always burning,

And then it couldn’t ever burn.

So let’s suppose that fire and fuel were essentially or inherently different. If they were,

fire would not come from fuel; it would not be “something that is inflamed due to

causes,” and therefore would already and always be burning. There would be no point

or need to ignite it since it would already and always be burning, and “it would do

nothing” in the sense that it would not consume fuel since it was not burning because

of or dependent on the fuel. Fire would be an “actor” or “agent” which didn’t act or do

anything – and that would be absurd. There is no agent without an action, and vice

versa; they exist only interdependently.


३

paratra nirapekṣatvādapradīpanahetukaḥ | punarārambhavaiyarthyaṁ nityadīptaḥ prasajyate || 3

10.3

Since it didn’t depend on anything else,

It would happen without a cause;

And if it’s already always burning,

How absurd to try and light it!

Being independent of its causes, fire would not need fuel to burn and would burn

eternally. And if fire was burning eternally it would be pointless to rekindle it; it

would need no rekindling, ever. Fire, of course, does not exist this way. We never

perceive fire to exist apart from fuel. It exists only dependently on fuel. And it is

because it is not independent that it can “do something” (i.e., consume the fuel it

depends on) and also makes it necessary for it to be reignited when it goes out having

consumed the fuel. Fire is not independent of its causes because it is seen to be brought

into existence the fuel, burn for as long as the fuel lasts, and go out when the fuel is

consumed. So fire and fuel cannot be inherently different.


४

tatraitasmādidhyamānamindhanaṁ bhavatīti cet | kenedhyatāmindhanaṁ tattāvanmātramidaṁ yadā || 4

10.4

Suppose you were to think to yourself:

“What’s burning is the firewood.”

If indeed this is simply the case,

What makes the firewood burn?

But if fire is not different from fuel, how can we say that one thing brings about another

– that “fire burns fuel”? Maybe fire and fuel are not separate but the same. One might

argue that it is not the fire but the fuel that burns. The fire, under this viewpoint, does

indeed depend on the fuel but is not different from it since the fuel is what’s doing the

burning. But Arya Nagarjuna here points out that if we say this we are saying that the

fire and fuel are identical and indistinguishable. And if we say that, then we cannot

say that the fuel is the cause of the burning or the fire. Cause and effect, to be “cause”

and “effect,” must be separable and therefore different.


न न न ५

anyo na prāpsyate 'prāpto na dhakṣyatyadahan punaḥ |

na nirvāsyatyanirvāṇaḥ sthāsyate vā svaliṅgavān || 5

10.5

Since they are two separate things,

They couldn’t ever touch;

And if there is no contact,

It couldn’t ever burn;

If it never burned,

It couldn’t ever die;

And if it never died,

It would stay fixed like that forever.

And now back to the other side of the problem: If fire were actually or really different

than the fuel, how could it interact with it? Really separate and different things never

touch (for if they did they would no longer be separate and different). If fire and fuel

were truly distinct, how could fire burn fuel?


६

anya evendhanādagnirindhanaṁ prāpnuyādyadi |

strī saṁprāpnoti puruṣaṁ puruṣaśca striyaṁ yathā || 6

10.6

“How does a woman touch a man,

Or a man ever touch a woman?

It’s because fire is different from fuel

That they can make contact.”

But, one might object, don’t men and women – two different things – unite and become

one in sexual intercourse? So why couldn’t fuel and fire similarly be both different and

come together?


७

anya evendhanādagnirindhanaṁ kāmamāpnuyāt |

āgnīndhane yadi syātāmanyonyena tiraskṛte || 7

10.7

Consider the two of fire and fuel:

If each is defined by the other,

Then even the fact that fire is

Something different than its fuel

Depends on the assertion that

It interacts with the fuel.

Arya Nagarjuna answers the objection by saying that different things like fire and fuel

might interact with each other, like men and women do, but only if they were truly

different, that is, only if they were mutually distinct. For an “interaction” requires that

there be two discrete things that come together. But since fire and fuel cannot exist

apart from each other (as we have seen already), they are not truly different and

distinct. . . and therefore cannot interact!


८

yadīndhanamapekṣyāgnirapekṣyāgniṁ yadīndhanaṁ | kataratpūrvaniṣpannaṁ yadapekṣyāgnirindhanaṁ || 8

10. 8

So fire is something dependent on fuel,

And fuel is that which depends on fire;

If fire and fuel depend on each other,

Which one of them came first?

Here we begin an analysis of how the interdependence between fire and fuel – if that

interdependence is conceived of as existing in any other way than as a mere appearance

– is also impossible. For if fire depends on fuel for its existence, then the fuel must exist

before the fire. Fuel also depends on fire for its existence -- wood, for example, is not

“fuel” until it is burning as a fire. It’s just “wood” until then. So fuel can’t exist before

fire and more than fire can exist before fuel.


९

yadīndhanamapekṣyāgniragneḥ siddhasya sādhanaṁ |

evaṁ satīndhanaṁ cāpi bhaviṣyati niragnikaṁ || 9

10.9

If fire were something dependent on fuel,

It would have to be there alongside the fire

And, you’d have fuel that’s being burned

Before there was ever a fire.

If we say that “fire depends on fuel,” we are presupposing the existence of something

(“fire”) that supposedly does not exist until the thing it depends on (“fuel”) is present.

But if there were no pre-existing fire, what, exactly, would “depend on fuel?” And if the

fire existed before the fuel, in what sense would it need fuel to bring it into existence? It

would already exist. And if fire existed before fuel, they would be separable and

distinct and we could, impossibly, have “fuel” that existed apart from the fire for which

it is “fuel.”


स य १०

yo 'pekṣya sidhyate bhāvastamevāpekṣya sidhyati | yadi yo 'pekṣitavyaḥ sa sidhyatāṁ kamapekṣya kaḥ || 10

10.10

If any dependent thing

Needed the depender to be there

In order for it to depend on it,

But the depender also needed it,

What could ever depend on what?

Maybe fire and fuel, while being dependent on one another, come into existence

simultaneously. But in that case, we could not say that one depends on the other or

that they were interdependent. For to say that “fire exists dependently on fuel,” the

very existence of fire is presupposed (as we have seen above). And if fire already exists

before the fuel it supposedly depends on, on what does it depend? And to say that “fuel

depends on fire” similarly assumes the existence of something called “fuel” before the

fire it supposedly depends on for its existence.


= न ११

yo 'pekṣya sidhyate bhāvaḥ so 'siddho ‘pekṣate kathaṁ | athāpyapekṣate siddhastvapekṣāsya na yujyate || 11

10.11

Say a thing occurs in dependence—

If that thing is absent, how does it depend?

But if you say it already exists,

It wouldn’t need anything to depend on.

If a thing that exists dependently is already an existing thing, then how can it exist

dependently? And if a thing doesn’t yet exist, how can it also be said to “exist

dependently.” Fire and fuel cannot exist interdependently under our usual

understanding of what it means to say that things exist interdependently. The inherent

existence of dependent origination is impossible. Dependent origination itself only

exists dependently, as a mere appearance and not happening “out there,”

“independently,” or “self-existently.”


न १२

apekṣyendhanamagnirna nānapekṣyāgnirindhanaṁ |

apekṣyendhanamagniṁ na nānapekṣyāgnimindhanaṁ || 12

10.12

It can’t be that fire depends upon fuel;

But equally impossible

Is that fire does not depend on fuel.

It can’t be that fuel depends upon fire;

But equally impossible

Is that fuel does not depend on fire.

There’s no existing fire that exists dependently on fuel. And there is no existing fire that

could possibly exist independent of fuel. There is no existing fuel that needs to depend

on fire (it already exists), and there’s no sense calling something “fuel” if it doesn’t

burn!


१३

āgaccatyanyato nāgnirindhane 'gnirna vidyate | atrendhane śeṣamuktam gamyamānagatāgataiḥ || 13

10.13

Fire can’t come from any other,

And fuel does not have any fire.

The rest about fuel is just the same

As what we talked about before

With going or not going by walking.

Fire is not somehow in its fuel, for if it were it would be identical to it and

indistinguishable from it. But fire doesn’t come from anything else besides fuel either –

fire doesn’t arise from water, or kitchen sinks, or just thinking. Arya Nagarjuna refers

here also to his analysis in the second chapter of this work on the emptiness of the

“going,” “gone,” and “not yet gone” -- what has burned (= “the gone”) is not burning,

for it’s already “burned”; and what has not yet burned (= “not yet gone”) can’t be

burning either, for it doesn’t exist yet. And burning can’t associated with what is

burning (= “going”), for if it already exists as “something which is burning,” it would

be redundant to say, “Something which is burning is burning.”


न १४

indhanaṁ punaragnirna nāgniranyatra cendhanāt |

nāgnirindhanavānnāgnāvindhanāni na teṣu saḥ || 14

10.14

The fuel itself is not the fire

But fire can’t come from anything else

The fire does not have any fuel

But if it doesn’t have fuel, it can’t exist.

Arya Nagarjuna here sums up what’s gone before by reviewing five ways possibilities

on how fire and fuel could relate to one another. . . and negating them all. Fuel is not

fire, for if it were they would be the same and not different. Similarly, a actor is not the

same as the action the actor performs. But fire and fuel are not inherently different

either, for if they were one could exist without the other. And the last three

possibilities all assume that fire and fuel are inherently separate things such that one

could possess the other or that one could be in the other.


१५

agnīndhanābhyāṁ vyākhyāta ātmopādānayoḥ kramaḥ | sarvo niravaśeṣeṇa sārdhaṁ ghaṭapaṭādibhiḥ || 15

10.15

This fire and fuel explain it all:

The self, and every stage of life;

Vases, and cloth, and everything else

That goes along with them.

Arya Nagarjuna here extends the implications of the discussion of fire and fuel to the

self and its parts (the body and mind): There is no self which is same as its parts (for

that would mean there would be as many selves as there are parts; or that multiple

parts could somehow be one); nor is there a self that could exist apart from its parts

(for if that were true, one’s self could exist somewhere other than where one’s mind and

body were). There is no self that “has” or possesses parts, for that would be a self

separable from the parts it possesses. The self is not somewhere “in” or dependent on

the parts, either regarded separately (the self is not “in” the legs or memories) or

together (when you put together all the parts, none of which are the self, a self does not

magically arise). Nor do the parts exist “in” or dependently on a self that exists prior

to and independent of them. The self exists dependently on its parts, and vice versa, but

only apparently and not really. And this is the case with all objects that seemingly

exist dependently on their parts or attributes as well (“pots and cloths” and such).


च न १६

ātmanaśca satattvaṁ ye bhāvānāṁ ca pṛthak pṛthak |

nirdiśanti na tānmanye śāsanasyārthakovidān || 16

10.16

So never think that anyone

Who tells you things or people

Are either separate, or together

Could understand what they are saying.

The Buddha did not teach that either the self or phenomena exist as either essentially

the same as one another or as essentially different from one another. Identity and

difference, when understood in any other way than only apparently, are impossible.

Meditation for Chapter Ten:

Am I the Same as or Different Than My Parts?

Sit down, relax, let everything go and pull your mind into the present moment. Focus on your

breath. Concentrate one-pointedly.

Now get in touch with the strong feeling of a self, a “me,” that exists truly, really, or objectively.

Get that feeling of the self as some tangible, palpable, perceptible, solidly existing entity.

Think, if this “me” truly exists, it must exist as identical to its parts; separate from them;

something that “has” or possesses its parts; something that is dependent on the parts, or

something the parts depend on.

Am I identical to or one with my parts? Am I the same as each of my parts, my body (and each

of its parts – my head, torso, arms, legs, etc.) and my mind (and each of its parts – my feelings,

ability to discriminate, consciousness, etc.)? When I point to each one of my parts, is it “me” I

am pointing to: “I am my elbow,” “I am my feeling at this moment”? No, for if that were so

then there would be as many “me’s” as there are parts which are me. Or alternatively and

impossibly, somehow just as “I” am one so would the multiple parts of this “me” be one.

If I’m not the same as my parts, maybe I am something other than my parts. Could there be a

“me” that existed apart from the parts of me – the body and mind? If this were possible, if you

took away all the parts, there would still be an inherently existing “me” there that you could

find and point to. You could locate this “me” here, and then over there you could point to

something different that was the mind and body of “me.”

Is there is a me who possesses my parts? A “me” who possessed my parts could not truly exist

as either the same as or different from the parts I supposedly possess, as we have already

established. So although there seems to be a truly existing “I” who “has” parts, that “I” cannot

be found (either as one with the parts it supposedly has, or as different from those parts). This

room “has” four walls, but where is the room that has four walls?

Perhaps I am something that depends on my parts. Like yogurt in a bowl, perhaps this “me”

exists within the parts which hold “me” together. But if that were the case, then there would be

a “me” (“yogurt”) distinct from what I depend on (“the bowl”), from my parts. A relationship

of dependence implies that the two things (“me” and “my parts”) are separate, and we’ve

already established that an inherently existing “me” that was truly different than its parts could

not exist.

But neither could my parts be dependent on me, like a forest (“my parts”) covered in snow

(“me”), for the same reason as above – for then “me” and “my parts” would again have to be

self-existently different entities, and we’ve seen that they couldn’t be.

Try to get a sense that the self you are trying to find simply cannot be there and hold your mind

on the absence. When you lose the sense of the emptiness of the self, review the steps above

again.

` nmae mãuïye om namo maïjuçraye i bow down to · pdf filechapter ten:...

Documents